


Learning

by argle_fraster



Category: Chrono Trigger
Genre: Canon - Original Game, Character Study, Gen, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-14
Updated: 2008-12-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:13:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Each of them has learned something valuable that they carry with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in 2008.

I.  
After Marle's mother died, the castle was quiet for a very long time. Eventually, her father started smiling again, and she started to feel like the gloomy storm clouds surrounding them all would dissipate. But bit by bit, she started to notice things that she was no longer allowed to do; they seemed insignificant at first, just small details– like playing in the forest with the other children, or visiting the market with her governess. Eventually, they disappeared altogether, and her life revolved around the castle and her father, and the going-ons within the safety of the stone walls. And she grew sullen and angry and claustrophobic in her make-shift prison, until she could hardly speak to him without yelling.

She resented him for a very long time, and it wasn't until much later, when her crossbow was snugly tucked around her arm and the sweat was beading on her forehead, that she realized he had been trying to keep safe the only remaining joy in his life. He did it in the only way he knew how.

She vowed to forgive him that day.

II.  
When Lucca was nine, she had won the science fair at school. Her father was proud of her, and her mother's eyes sparkled, but the other children made fun of her for caring more about wires than about who was picked first during the free period games. She started to spend more time alone at the back of the class, drawing pictures of robots. Sometimes the robots would hold up little signs saying nice things like 'You're smart!', and even though she had written it, the words still made her feel a little bit better.

One day her notebook fell to the floor, and she wasn't fast enough at picking it up again– the other students saw her robot drawings, and laughed harder than ever. But Crono found her after school when she was trudging along the dusty road and shyly mumbled about how he liked her drawings a lot, and how he thought robots were very cool.

The next day she drew him a picture of a robot holding a waving banner that read 'You're my best friend!'.

III.  
Cyrus was the best sort of friend ever; he always drove away the bullies, and sometimes he would let Glenn play with his wooden sword, and show him how to do the moves like the knights did. Glenn liked the sword, because he could pretend that he was a great warrior, slaying dragons and rescuing princesses. And sometimes Cyrus would be really nice, and pretend to be the dragon, and then they could stage epic battles through the forests by the bridge.

Cyrus was an awfully good dragon, and once he managed to knock the sword out of Glenn's hands. And then Glenn started crying, because he was afraid that he was going to be killed without his weapon. Cyrus had patted his head and told him that there was nothing wrong with dying for a good cause– but only if it was a good cause, and something Glenn really believed in.

Glenn asked how he would know a good cause when he found it, and Cyrus just smiled in a way that Glenn wouldn't understand for a very long time.

IV.  
Hunting was done by boys. It was the way it was, and the way it would always be, and no matter how much Ayla protested, she couldn't change it. The boys got to go into the trees and hunt, and she had to sit around the hot fire with her mother to cook, and kneel by the animal skins on the floor to clean them. She didn't like cooking, and she didn't like cleaning skins, but no one would listen to her.

So at night, she started going out by the Meeting Grounds and practicing, mimicking what she saw the boys do. She started by throwing rocks at trees to see if she could hit the trunks; when she got good at that, she started climbing trees and hanging on the branches for as long as she could hold herself up.

And when the boys were attacked by Reptites, she saved one of them by throwing a stone at the lizard's head and hitting it between the eyes. After that, no one tried to tell her that she couldn't go with the hunting parties anymore.

V.  
The Enlightened Ones were not particularly pleasant to be around. When they weren't high on dream-potions, they tended to loiter around the palace for purely selfish purposes and discuss the current activities of those not present, especially those that they felt were doing something inappropriate. They loved the Gurus until the Queen became angry with them; then the wise men received nothing but scorn by the occupants of the palace.

It was the same with Janus. He was beloved as the royal son until the Gurus could not awaken his magical abilities. Then he was a laughingstock, the topic of mutterings and jokes. Some questioned his parentage, others questioned his competence. When they were particularly cruel, he would seek out Schala in her room and lay on her bed, letting her run her hands through his hair while he cried onto her sheets. She was busy, though, and wasn't always there, and on the days when she was absent, he would curl up in her bed and try to block out what the others were saying about him.

One day, she gave him a simple blue box, and inside was a tiny kitten, curled up in the corner. She said it was so that he was never alone anymore, even when she was otherwise occupied.

VI.  
The others were wary of Magus when he joined and tended to steer clear of him, but Marle sought him out on the first night. She saw how his eyes flickered up when she approached, and then stayed resolutely on the dancing orange shadows across the expanse of snow.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" he asked.

"No," she said. There was a pause.

"Are you angry, then?"

"No," she said again. "You were a little boy. And you were scared. And you were just trying to get back to your sister."

He didn't look up, but she saw the muscles in his jaw clench a bit.

"You loved your sister. And I forgive you." She didn't say anything more, and went back to Crono's side near the fire.

After that, she started noticing that more and more she would find the familiar tingle of a magical barrier on her skin after particularly rough battles. She never said anything about it, and neither did he.

VII.  
When Lucca woke up in the simple, skin-lined tent, she could hardly breathe. She hadn't had a panic attack since the night of her mother's accident, and she had to fib about not feeling well to get the others out of the tent so she could be alone. She couldn't get the awful, gut-wrenching scream out of her head, and Crono's splayed body kept flashing across her vision.

She almost had it under control when the flap moved up.

"Lucca?"

"Yes," she said, wiping at her face in hopes that the remnants of her tears were long gone. "I'm fine, Robo, just feeling a bit under the weather."

The robot clinked across the floor and stopped directly in front of her form.

"One of the humans I knew, he used to say that when someone died, they became a guardian angel," Robo said. "He said that they would linger nearby and protect those remaining."

"Yeah," Lucca sniffed. "I've heard that, too."

Robo leaned forward and draped fabric around Lucca's shoulders; red fabric, that smelled a bit like the Potions it had been carried near.

Crono's bandana.

Lucca pressed her face up against Robo's steel plates, and sighed.

"Thanks," she whispered.

VIII.  
The first time Glenn tried to go back to Guardia Castle, he was attacked by four guards, two villagers, and a child who threw sticks at him. He never even made it to the woods surrounding the palace. The second time he tried to go, three of the village women surrounded him and began pelting him with rotting vegetables. The third time, a little girl screamed and fainted as he passed her by. He managed to get into the tree-cover, and hid in the bushes with his webbed hands over his head, wishing that frogs had the ability to cry.

It was only because of the Hero's Badge that he managed to get through the guards at the castle two days later, and he fell at the feet of the King and Queen with his hands over his face, because he was too ashamed to look at them directly. He cowered for several long, never-ending minutes before there was a hand on his shoulder.

"Glenn," Leene said. "Oh, Glenn, we'd thought you killed!"

"No, Your Grace," he mumbled into his fingers, "but I wish I had been. T'would be better for all had he finished me off."

"No," she cooed, and pressed her other hand to his forehead, gently. Her palm was warm and soft. "No matter what he's done to you, you're still the same inside. You're still the Glenn we knew and loved. And Cyrus would be proud of you."

"Then–" he said, startled. "You wish me to stay?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation.

And it was only because of that steadfast devotion that he continued making the journey to the castle, that he endured the taunts and fears. It was only for her, the Queen that never stopped believing in him, that he bothered to go anywhere at all.

IX.  
They brought her the rock on a particularly warm morning, when the heat of the magma was low and hung close in the air.

"Chief," they called her, falling to their knees and bowing before her. Ayla took the red stone and held it in her hands, fingers running over the smooth surface. "Chief."

"Me Chief," she said aloud.

"Good Chief," one assured. "Strong Chief."

She was sad that the old chief had died; he'd been hurt by Reptites a few days earlier, and had slept in the small tent near the Meeting Grounds without ever waking back up. He had been good at defending the village, but bad at actually doing anything about the Reptite problem.

"As Chief, make big decisions," Ayla said, and the bowing figures nodded vigorously.

"Big decision, many decision," they mumbled to the ground, blowing dirt with their breath.

"Then decide fight Reptite," she declared, fingers closing around the rock as tightly as possible. "Fight, stay here. Not fight, go to Laruba."

"Laruba?" one cried, eyes wide.

"Make village in trees," Ayla said, nodding. "Hide in trees. Hide in village. Here, fight."

There was a bit of dissent, but they agreed. They agreed because she was Chief– she was the strongest, and the bravest. She could hit a tree from many paces away with a small rock, could break the neck of a Reptite with a single crack; she was the one who led the hunting parties, and found the most meat.

And she would not let them live in fear any longer.

X.  
Nothing remained of Zeal. It took Janus a long time to figure out where and when he was; in a land where no one had magic any longer, and the only creatures who did were beasts that fought against humans. He couldn't even try to hide his talents, for Ozzie had seen him use a crude stunning spell against the Imps that had attacked him in the forest. He let himself be molded by them, because he had nothing left to cling to– nothing left to amount to.

But he never stopped looking for a way to get back to Zeal, to his family– to her.

"Time travel?" Ozzie scoffed, laughing and hitting his knee in his great guffaws. "Can't even keep your head where you are? You should be worried more about taking care of that army!"

"Fine," Janus said, chewing on his bottom lip. "If not time travel, then what of summoning?"

Ozzie cocked one large eyebrow at him.

"You mean, summoning other beasts?"

"Yes." Janus didn't think it mattered much if Ozzie thought he was summoning something to fight; he was, but he would be fighting against the creature, not beside it. "There has to be a way to do this."

"There might be," Ozzie mused. "And maybe I'll help you out– after you take care of the army."

It was easy enough; a favor for a favor, a fair trade. So Janus honed his spells and tried not to think about the faces under the helms of the knights he killed. All he could do was imagine his sister, yelling at him from the middle of the crumbling Ocean Palace, and it was enough to fuel him on.

And at night, by candlelight, he began studying the means to summon the terrible beast from the inside of the Earth.


End file.
